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After the ’60s, balky, single-screen theaters were demolished as multiplexes took over. Atomic age drive-ins ate up valuable land. Some proud movie palaces became X-rated peep shows in the ’70s, or stood disheveled for years, their neon marquees dark, a shabby monument to glory days gone by.

But the lost picture shows of Palm Beach County haven’t been forgotten. Let’s roll the final credits on some of your favorites.

The Palms

Clematis Street and Narcissus Avenue, West Palm Beach

Opened: 1949 Demolished: 1965

The Palms (then)

The Kettle Theatre, which later became The Palms movie theater, was demolished in 1965. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

The Palms location (now)

The site of the former Palms Theatre in West Palm Beach on March 13. (Bruce R. Bennett / The Palm Beach Post)

Ground zero for Palm Beach County movie theaters. It was the site of the Bijou in 1908, which later became the 1,400-seat Kettler in 1923. Reduced to 700 seats, it was renamed the Florida Theatre in 1935, and then the Palms in 1949. A rising ’50s rocker named Elvis Presley once performed at the Palms. Readers recall its balcony and a summer movie promotion of free admission for six RC cola caps. The Palms was demolished in 1965 for a parking lot.

West Palm Beach’s Carefree theater in 1984, which was razed on South Dixie Highway in September 2016. (Photo by Loren Hosack)

Probably the most beloved theater in Palm Beach County. Originally began as the “Carefree Bowlaway” and opened as a movie theater in 1947. (First show: “The Egg and I,” starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert.) When the abandoned complex was torn down last year, readers sent in so many heartfelt memories of the films, concerts and comedy shows they saw there. It once boasted “the largest lobby in the world,” a game center, crying baby room and ladies-only pool room.

The site of the former Paramount Theatre is now a church that shows movies once a month. (Bruce R. Bennett / The Palm Beach Post)

Dubbed the millionaires’ theater, The Paramount is the only lasting structure that gives a sense of the opulence and grandeur of local movie palaces. It was designed by architect Joseph Urban, who also did work on Mar-A-Lago. The Paramount had 1,236 seats, including orchestra and a balcony that included private boxes for wealthy patrons known as the “Diamond Horseshoe.”

By the late ’70s, though, the theater was advertising $1.25 movies and the selling point: “1,100 Seats. No Waiting.” It put on the semi-nude musical stage show, “Oh, Calcutta!” And a double bill of Styx and Black Oak Arkansas.

Today, the only outer signs of the Paramount’s former splendor are its Mediterranean-style exterior, and a deteriorating neon sign. A nationally protected landmark and now home of the presevation-minded Paramount Church, it has a wonderful lobby featuring photos and posters of the movies and stars that graced its stage, from George Gershwin to Barbra Streisand.

Delray Drive-In

N. Federal Highway, Delray Beach

Opened: 1952 Closed: 1988

The logo for the Delray Drive-In in the 1950s.

From the late 1940s to the 1980s, numerous drive-ins dotted the landscape — the Dixie Skydrome in Lake Worth, the Boulevard in West Palm Beach, the Lake in Belle Glade and the Beach in Riviera Beach. By the end, most were showing soft-core or X-rated movies and doubling as daytime swap shops.

Then, there was the Delray Drive-In. It waa the first Florida drive-in to show Cecil B. De Mille’s epic “The Ten Commandments.” In the ’60s, it would dispense liquid polio vaccine to patrons in little cups. But by 1980, it deteriorated to the point that a bottle-throwing mob of louts required a full shift of Delray Beach police officers to quell them.

Under the drive-in’s main screen, there was a house. For a time, Richard Katz lived there, while working as a projectionist in the ’70s. It “had so many rats,” he recalled on Facebook.

“During the day time the property was my back yard. I had a bow and arrow and would practice my archery skills. One day I decided to launch an arrow as high and far as I could, then couldn’t find where it landed. That night I noticed a strange shadow on the back screen, I had impaled the screen. It was there for years.”

Today, only one drive-in remains: the Lake Worth Drive-In, which opened as the Trail in 1968.

The site of the former Lake Theater in Lake Worth on March 8. The Lake Avenue grounds are now home to the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County. (Bruce R. Bennett / The Palm Beach Post)

Anybody who frequents downtown Lake Worth can’t miss this Art Deco beauty of a building, but who knew it started as a movie house? Designed by noted Jacksonville theater architect Roy Benjamin, it once boasted a 160-seat balcony, a neon marquee and “acoustically treated walls.” But by 1974, when it shut down, the Post reported that the “acoustically treated walls are dark with tobacco stain.” It was then converted into the Pasta Palace, an Italian restaurant that showed movies and newsreels while you slurped your spaghetti. Fortunately, the building rediscovered its artistic roots. In the late ’80s, it became the Lannan Museum, then the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art and today is the headquarters of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council.

The Florida Theatre

Clematis Street, West Palm Beach

Opened: 1949 Closed: 1981

The Florida Theatre (then)

The 1949 grand opening of the Florida Theatre, now Palm Beach Dramaworks, on Clematis Street. Photo by Historical Society of Palm Beach County)

The Florida Theatre (now)

Palm Beach Dramaworks.

When the Florida opened in 1949 catty-corner to the Palms, at Clematis and Narcissus, downtown West Palm Beach was a movie lover’s paradise. People lined up around the block to see the opening feature, “The Heiress,” starring Olivia de Havilland. But by the early ’80s, all showings were $2 and the marquee featured dreck such as “The Devil Within Her” and “Shogun Massacre.” After being shuttered, the seating was reduced, the interior redesigned and it began a new chapter as a stage company. Over the years it has housed the Cuillo Center for the Arts, the Burt Reynolds Institute for Theater Training and is now, with its curved marquee still glowing, the home of Palm Beach Dramaworks.

The Delray Theater

NE 5th Avenue, Delray Beach

Opened: 1923 Closed: 1961

The Delray Theatre in its heyday, which stood on NE Fifth Avenue in downtown for almost 40 years. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

With its Spanish facade and intricately detailed Art Deco marquee, the Delray was south county’s theater destination when it opened. It had a rooftop dance floor and early-air conditioning: fans blowing on big blocks of ice. In a 1984 memoir, Lora Sinks Britt remembered the cooling system: “The women frequently complained that they had stiff necks or sore joints as a result of sitting in the draft.” The building was razed in 1961.

The Oakley/The Playtoy

Lake Avenue, Lake Worth

Opened: 1924 Closed: 1973

The Playtoy (then)

The Playtoy in downtown Lake Worth, when the city was ‘the skin flick capital of the country.’ Many theaters in the ’70s and ’80s converted to screening these controversial films. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

The site of the former Playtoy on March 8, where the Lake Worth Playhouse and Stonzek Theatre currently stand.
(Bruce R. Bennett / The Palm Beach Post)

This theater has a history. What a history. Opened in 1924. Rebuilt after the ‘28 hurricane. The owners died tragically — Lucien Oakley by suicide in 1931, his brother Clarence from a heart attack one year later. Rumors of Oakley ghosts persist to this day. Former Post columnist Bill McGoun remembered going there when it was called The Worth. “On weekends, kids could see a cowboy film, a second feature (often a Bowery Boys) and a serial for 9 cents.”

Like other theaters, there was the inevitable downfall into nudie cinema. In the 1960s, it became the Capri Art Theater and then the Playtoy and its smutty reputation drove city and religious leaders batty. Raids throughout the early ’70s culminated in arrests for showing “Deep Throat.” That led to the Playtoy shutting down. The Lake Worth Playhouse made the joint respectable again in 1975, and its Stonzek theater is again showing art films. Just not the Capri kind of “art” films.

OTHER NOTABLE LOST THEATERS

PALM BEACH

Designed in the Spanish style by August Geiger and built in 1916 at the corner of Everglades Avenue and North Lake Trail, the Fashion Beaux Arts shopping center featuring a second-story movie theater, the Beaux Arts Theatre. (Photo contributed by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County)

*The Beaux Arts, a rooftop theater opened in 1916, on North Lake Trail in a Spanish-style shopping complex.

*The 800-seat Garden opened in 1922 where the Palm Beach Book Store now is on Royal Poinciana Way.

*The Colony theater, on Sunrise near the Paramount, debuted in 1947 and was razed in 1971.

WEST PALM BEACH

*The Park, a 400-seat theatre on Park Place, in Flamingo Park.

*The Surf, on Datura Street between Olive and Dixie, opened in 1948 and closed in 1962.

The Surf Theater, between Olive and Dixie on Datura Street in West Palm Beach. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

*A $21 million complex of movie theaters, bowling lanes and restaurants is planned for Jupiter’s downtown Abacoa. Construction may begin later this year, with a late 2018 target date opening.

*A six-theater art movie house, plus shops, apartments and restaurants, on the site of the old Carefree Theatre complex on South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach. The size and neighborhood impacts are still being debated.